Ubisoft vets releasing free demo for Metroidvania couch co-op Revenge of the Savage Planet because "we know that money is tight," and they hope you'll say "this 4 years of effort and 30 people" that made the full game "is worth 2 lattes"

Some three months after launch, Revenge of the Savage Planet is getting a big free update and Steam demo that lets players try out the beginning of the sci-fi action co-op game commitment-free, starting August 18.

Revenge of the Savage Planet – a bigger, weirder, raunchier sequel to Journey to the Savage Planet – released back in May after Raccoon Logic founders Reid Schneider and Alex Hutchinson re-acquired the rights to the franchise from Google following its Stadia shutdown.

Ubisoft veterans going back decades, Schneider and Hutchinson are heading up an indie studio of about 30 people working on Revenge of the Savage Planet, and they say the success of the base game will determine whether it'll eventually get proper DLC. As part of a push for some post-launch discoverability, Raccoon Logic is dropping a free demo sampling the first hour or so of Revenge of the Savage Planet, and Hutchinson tells me he's confident in the value proposition.

"We know that when people touch it, they like it," he says. "If they're worried about quality, we're really proud of the game. And we think it's got a lot of greatness, a great offer. So letting people touch it and see what they think about it before they buy it, that's great. It's essentially the start of the game – basically, is what they get to play – and hopefully it's enough to hook them and to want to know more and explore more... hopefully they'll be like, this, this four years of effort and 30 people is worth two lattes."

"That's depressing," replies Schneider, laughing.

In addition to the demo, at the same time on August 18, Revenge of the Savage Planet is getting a big, free update with a long-requested 60 FPS performance mode, because, as Hutchinson jokingly puts it, "people like their games ugly," as well as a customizable photo mode and a variety of 40 new items for habitat customization.

Lastly, and I don't know how I'm supposed to type this out professionally, there's a reward for folks who play the demo and then go on to buy the full game: a golden bidet. Yes, the thing slowly, uncomfortably making toilet paper obsolete, and Hutchinson tells me it's actually, for real, officially called the "Bidet-a-lago," seemingly in reference to US president Donald Trump's penchant for gold-plated everything.

I'm gonna excuse myself now.

Revenge of the Savage Planet is among the best games on Game Pass for Xbox and PC.